Hopkins

High school basketball fans witnessed March Madness at Target Center Thursday night as a pair of state tournament semifinal games ended with buzzer-beating shots that went in. Hopkins and Lakeville North will meet for the Class 4A state championship Saturday night, but both teams needed shots to go in as time expired to get there.

The Twin Cities have already implemented winter parking restrictions due to this season’s combo of relentless snow and persistent, frigid cold, and now parking restrictions are coming to the western suburbs.

February is a great time of year to be a high school sports fan in Minnesota. Every week, there’s a big match-up somewhere putting talented teams against each other with a lot on the line. This weekend, remaining girls hockey teams vie for a trip to state in various section championship games.

A woman who lost her fiancé to a heroin overdose says Minnesota lawmakers can do something about a growing epidemic that will save lives. On Saturday night, the Steve Rummler Hope Foundation hosted an event at Tuttles in Hopkins to raise awareness about drug addiction. Rummler died three years ago after a heroin overdose. He battled a prescription drug addiction for years following a back injury.

It’s the coldest time of the year to be outside as we’re often stuck in subzero temperatures and painfully freezing wind chills. As cold as it is outside, things are heating up in high school gyms and hockey rinks all over the state. We are in the grind of the conference season all across Minnesota.

A 32-year-old man is in custody after a standoff in Hopkins Monday, according to police. Hopkins Police Sgt. Mike Glassberg says police received a request at around 10:20 a.m. from Brooklyn Center to locate and arrest a suspect wanted in connection to a felony assault with a weapon.

It’s early January and it’s bitterly cold outside, but that also means high school sports teams are entering the gauntlet that is the conference season. Many teams spent December playing non-conference competition both in tournaments and in some rivalry games to get the competitive juices flowing.

A comedian from Minnesota is having a little fun at the expense of one of the biggest songs on the radio, Lorde’s “Royals.” Molly Dworsky is a Hopkins native trying to make it big in comedy in Los Angeles. In her new parody video, she sings about not having accomplished much at 26 compared to Lorde, who is still a teenager.

It’s Charity Week at WCCO-TV as we put the spotlight on local organizations which go the extra mile to give back to the community. Thursday marks one of the biggest initiatives as it’s “Give to the Max” Day. Helping Paws in Hopkins is just one of several local organizations that are taking part in the day.

There’s always that one week in the football season that means a little more than all the rest. You’ve put in the practice time, you’ve been in the weight room and you’ve watched the film. It’s time to go out under the lights and get that big victory.

A Hopkins teenager who generously — and without anyone watching — went out of his way to help a stranger, is now reaping the rewards of that kindness. Joey Prusak saw a woman steal $20 from a blind customer at the Dairy Queen where he works. So he gave the guy his own cash.

His name is Joey Prusak — a name people all over the country are reading about this morning. The 19-year-old Hopkins Dairy Queen employee is stealing hearts all over the country after an act of kindness he thought no one even saw.

Joey Prusak of Hopkins is still shocked after witnessing someone steal cash from a blind man in the Dairy Queen store he manages. Prusak said while working the register on Sept. 10 he saw the blind man he was helping drop a $20 dollar bill. “The lady behind him picked it up really quickly,” Prusak said. “I had no time to say, ‘Sir, you dropped that.'”

For as many as 21 Minnesota football teams, they’ve been practicing for two full weeks now, and all that hard work will be on display Friday night. It’s “Zero Week” in prep football around the state, meaning that high school football is already kicking off officially.

They started playing together in 1973, but little did they know that forty years later they’d still be teammates, playing on the same field they started on. Now in their late 50s, Susie Hatch and Therese Douglass are still competing for all the right reasons. For 40 years, they’ve been playing at the same park – the Excelsior Commons. “The whole outfield is Lake Minnetonka, so it’s gorgeous,” Douglass said.

DeAndre Hopkins and Cordarrelle Patterson showed off some of that first-round talent. Houston and Minnesota can’t wait to put that to use when the games actually count. Hopkins caught a 34-yard touchdown pass for the Texans in a 27-13 preseason victory on Friday over the Vikings. Patterson had an equally flashy first half.

One of Hennepin County’s top ten most wanted criminals has been arrested in Chicago. According to the Hennepin County Sheriff’s office, 31-year-old Devon McFerrin was driving when he was pulled over by Chicago Police. Police say McFerrin, a prolific drug dealer, sold heroin to a man who later died from an overdosed in a Hopkins apartment in 2012.

You’ll probably have to go back a long way in the history books to figure out the last time Eden Prairie lost two football games in a season, much less a regular season. Losing the last two games of the year heading into the 2012 postseason gave the Eagles plenty of fuel as they rebounded for five straight wins on the way to another state championship.

Post Traumatic Stress Disorder is something many of us don’t really understand. Veterans dealing with the condition have certain needs that can be hard to meet. A new program at Helping Paws, in Hopkins, is trying a unique way to help. They’re using specially trained dogs to help local vets get through day to day life and heal their emotional scars.

A 17-year-old Orono teen is missing, according to authorities. Orono Police are looking for James Joseph (Joe) Kenney. He was last seen in Hopkins driving a forest green Land Rover LR3, license plate number 899-HAE. If you have any information on Kenney’s whereabouts, call Orono Police or your local authorities.